Washing Machine breakdown

With this fast paced life, how can a women, especially a working women like me, can live without a gadget/instrument/machine which does the work or which helps me to finish my work much easier than a manual labour..Hats off to the ladies of last century, especially my amma’s era…I wonder how she, being a homemaker, managed herself, at my age now, with 3 kids and my Acchan around..doing her household chores…all by herself ..with no servant maids around...I bow my head to my Amma and other ladies who still continue with their traditional way of taking care of household chores………………….

But in case, if these friendly gadgets becomes foe at crucial time, it will be like screw up…..It adds to fire….and especially when the breakdown happens when I’m not around……

I’m reminded of an incidence……I was trying frantically to get a job …in an area which I had experience….the same old IT….I was attending interviews almost every alternative days…grabbing on the 1st opportunity when consultants and company’s calls…walk-in’s during weekends….On a typical Saturday, I was running out of the time….rushing up to quickly finish my daily household chores….and which I was not able to finish…and silently delegating to DH…..He doesn’t approve of such delegation…but no way out…you know….He returns the “I-will-not-do” nod…I was off to one such interview which was scheduled at 9:30 in the morning…I was late as usual…but never mind, so many people had turn up…hence it was not noticed……By the time, I finished my first round of interview, it was half past 12. I was asked to wait for my HR round…I went to food court to grab something to fill my hungry stomach…. when I saw a missed call from my DH…..I called him to enquire how he is doing with the children…….all by himself…., making them take bath, feeding ….pavam, handling all by himself…He is far better than me at it, though…He says “ Is the washing machine broke down?..”….I exclaimed screamingly over the overcrowded pantry “No”….”what happened?”…The whole room is flooded with soapy water ….”what?”…”Yeah, some leak…maybe some hole at the bottom of the machine, I believe”….”What did you do?...tell me the steps that you followed….”…He goes….Ah! He has forgotten to close the inlet pipe….”Close the tap”….and redo from this step….He goes “you come and do…”…

My washing machine is a automatic but kind of semi-automatic…. Manual interference is allowed.....The inlet pipe does not work with its fullest capacity…It takes hours for the inlet pipe to fill the bin…Hence I never open the inlet pipe and manually fill it with 2-3 buckets of water till it gives a screeching sound…”KEee”…Then I shut it and manually select the “program”..and “select” button…It starts running and keeps mum in between…then it goes for the next step…”Soak”… for another 10-15 minutes…Then once again it goes “Keeee”…and goes to the next step automatically “wash”….then there is a continous “cluck cluck” movement for next 10-15 minutes and the whole soapy water get drained out through outlet pipe…Then it goes for a vigorous drain action….and goes for the next “Keeee”…..Now at this step, I interfere and manually pour some 1-2 buckets of water for the final rinse with fresh water….when the water level reaches the correct level…it yells back at me with “Keee”…I shut the lid once again….and once again it goes back to the vigourous rinse action….and goes automatically to the next action “Spin”….the bin goes energetically for the anti-clockwise motion for the final drain of water from the cloths and goes to “Dry” step …hot air gushes from the sides to remove the left out wetness of the final washed cloths…It takes almost 45 mintues to 1-hour for the whole job to get over……


When I reached my home, it was 3 in the afternoon..I decided to do a FIR of the whole situation…The room where the washing machine was kept was closed…..I opened it to see the whole room flooded with soap water….I carefully reached the machine and started my investigation…...and Ah!!! I smelled the reason why? My DH does not know this step by step procedure…He has opened the inlet pipe and left it open throughout the process…somehow my machine since it got used to this manual intervention, didn’t understood that it has to close the inlet duct, I believe….hahhaha..what should I say?....the water started overflowing from the bin….

Now that the ball is in my coat, armed with broomstick and bucket I washed up the whole room…..and once again started the washing machine right from the beginning….At the end of the whole hungama, not only the cloths got washed and cleaned ,the whole place became spotless, sparkling to the evening sun…...